


survival is second nature

by fuzzy_paint



Series: girls with sharp teeth [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Fix-It, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-17
Updated: 2014-11-17
Packaged: 2018-02-25 19:09:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2632940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuzzy_paint/pseuds/fuzzy_paint
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anya crumples like a ragdoll; Clarke will remember that for the rest of her life, how easily she went to the ground. How she just dropped. Just like that. <em>Anya.</em></p>
<p>Clarke takes on Camp Jaha, Grounders, and Mount Weather to save Anya.</p>
            </blockquote>





	survival is second nature

**Author's Note:**

> Because I'm in denial. 
> 
> Special THANK YOU to hariboo for reading in the early stages and giving some much needed encouragement. All mistakes are mine.

Later, Clarke won't remember much about that night. She'll remember Anya in the low light, covered in mud and blood, still unsteady from the tranquilizer and their fight, soft almost promises on the threshold of peace. 

She'll remember how tightly Anya gripped her wrist. The look in her eyes. The feeling, almost like warmth, spreading in her chest. 

Anya crumples like a ragdoll; Clarke will remember that for the rest of her life, how easily she went to the ground. How she just dropped. Just like that. _Anya._

The burn of a bullet is nothing to the rest of her wounds, and Anya's blood spills over her hands, so warm, so much of it everywhere. She'll remember thinking about all the mud in their wounds, the dirt in their hair, on their skin. 

She'll remember worrying about infection of all things, when she couldn't even stop the bleeding. 

 

They hit her over the head and drag her away from Anya's body. Adrenaline makes her clumsy - how far did they come from Mount Weather with no food, little water, being hunted most of the way? She's still trying to find her feet when they stop. 

Someone asks a question. The words mean nothing, but that voice, that voice-

Hands touch her face, pushing her hair back, wiping dirt and blood away. Saying her name.

Her name. 

Her mother, alive, here. Alive.

"Oh god," Clarke says, "Anya."

She twists, wrenching herself free, stumbling back to the gate. She hears her name again. Hands try to grab her, to hold her but Anya, she's dying, they need her-

 

Someone's washing Clarke's hands. The water is warm and they're gentle and thorough, but the blood is stubborn beneath her fingernails, like a stain that won't come out. They'd been clean at Mount Weather; she hadn't noticed until now. Hadn't cared. They keep changing out the water; there's so much mud. So much blood. 

When she goes to clean Clarke's face, Clarke catches her wrist. 

Raven. 

Clarke grabs her and holds on. She thinks she's going to choke on the relief. There's so much of it. She swallows it down, but she doesn't let go even when she pulls back, fingers tight on the sleeves of Raven's red jacket. She has to, she has to- 

"Anya?"

Raven's gaze drops. Her mouth goes tight. 

"She saved my life," Clarke says, feeling like something's rotting in her stomach. "She-"

She tried to kill Clarke only hours before. Took her prisoner, beat her with a rock, led her to freedom after abandoning her in the Reaper tunnels. They haven't stopped fighting since they've met. But that's not true. They did stop, they did, and Clarke almost dared to hope.

To survive so much. To come so close.

So close. 

 

Anya is pale, her skin clammy. Her hair's in tangles, but she's cleaner than she was. Most of her is covered in bandages, and it's too much like seeing her in Mount Weather's cage. She's even less responsive now than she was then. 

Raven said she'd screamed, fought until they'd started helping Anya. Until they started doing _something_. Clarke remembers that, but not what she said, or what she did that finally made them get a clue. 

The bullet sits in a tray nearby; Clarke won't let them take it away. There's a tube in Anya's chest so her own body doesn't drown her, and she breathes on her own, but it's labored and shallow. Ragged.

There are no respirators on the ground. 

And she hasn't woken up.

"It could have been Clarke," her mother says, wearing the Chancellor's pin, alive alive alive. It's too much. It's all too much. 

Clarke tightens her grip on Anya's arm, just below where she'd bitten the tracker out, but Anya does nothing. 

"It should have been me," Clarke says, flat and tired, and god, how messed up is it to wish for a time before all this, before the Ark came to the ground and before Mount Weather, when her people listened to her instead of looking at her like a child. 

She's tired of everyone making the same mistakes over and over and over. 

"Clarke-"

"Her name is Anya," Clarke says. "She's-"

We made an alliance she wants to yell until her throat goes hoarse, until they understand that their best chance at peace is unconscious, dying, because they shot her and now they have no medicine or equipment to help her. 

The little she knows about Anya, Clarke knows she's not one to go back on her word, not when she gave it to someone she respected. That had been respect in her eyes, at the end, hadn't it? She wouldn't have taken Clarke's hand if she hadn't understood. Agreed. 

Right?

But what good would it do? What good? Anya would still be shot. It didn't matter who pulled the trigger; it just mattered that they did. 

Her mother reaches for her, and though part of Clarke wants nothing more than to curl into her mother's arms, let her soothe away all her fears and problems, a larger part of her doesn't. Her mother is alive, and well, but Clarke's too full of anger, too full relief, too full of everything. Clarke doesn't need any of it right now; she only needs to think and none of it is helping.

And she can't. And those are her people in that mountain. Anya's people. Mount Weather is hurting them; how long until they start hurting Clarke's? 

 

Anya's temperature climbs and her pulse races under Clarke's fingers. Her mom and Jackson do what they can, and Clarke and Raven follow their instructions. She needs medicine, but they don't have any. She could use some painkillers, but they don't have any of those either.

They don't have anything. They don't even have Lincoln's knowledge of plantlife. 

There's nothing she can do but sit and wait, see if she pulls through. Clarke sees the look Jackson exchanges with her mom. She doesn't need to see it. She knows it's bad. 

Raven stays with her, tells her about Bellamy - Clarke hoards the relief, storing it up, reaches over Anya's body to grasp Raven's hand - about Finn and Monroe and Sterling. About Murphy, alive. A problem, but a living one. 

People filter in, asking about their son, their daughter, please tell me what happened to my child- 

(He's in the mountain, she was alive when I escaped, I'm sorry but the fever got him, and I don't know I don't know I don't know-)

She tells Raven, softly, about Mount Weather. She tells them all about Mount Weather, about what they're doing to the Grounders and about how they can't survive in the radiation and about how they've been lying to them this whole time, but she tells Raven about the keycards, the heavy blast doors, the suits they wear when they go outside. 

Raven leaves soon after Clarke's voice has gone hoarse, but she has a look in her eyes that eases something in Clarke, something Anya didn't do, something even her mother couldn't do. 

 

Anya doesn't wake for hours. Clarke's half asleep when she does, groggy and confused, so she doesn't realize that Anya's trying to rip the tube out of her chest. She fights when Clarke stops her. Or tries to fight, weak from blood loss and fever, rambling something in her language. 

Maybe it's time to start learning it. Anya struggles even though Clarke says meaningless things - it's okay, you're hurt but you're safe, you're safe -

"Anya, it's not Mount Weather!" 

She goes slack in Clarke's hands, and something thick and tight lodges itself in Clarke's throat, but then Anya says Clarke's name. She says her name, and there's almost clarity in her eyes, and- 

She starts to vomit down her front. Clarke rolls her on her side, mindful of the tube in her chest, and she holds Anya's hair back until she's done. She helps her lay back down, checks the tube, and wipes her mouth with a cloth.

"You need medicine," Clarke says. Anya says nothing.

Clarke wipes her mouth again, and her chin. She looks up to see her mother watching her from across the room. "Who is this girl?"

_She tried to kill me, she brought war against my people, she infected us with a virus-_

_She was protecting her people._

_She saved my life._

"We need her," Clarke says. "If we ever want peace with the Grounders. She can get them to listen. Mount Weather will have medicine. Probably equipment."

"Is she going to fight if she wakes up again?" Abby sits up. "Clarke, if she's dangerous-" 

"They kept her in a cage," Clarke says. "In the dark. They tied her people up by their ankles and drained their blood. In front of her." 

"You're the only one she knows here. You're the only one she'll respond to-" 

"I know. But I'm the only one who knows Mount Weather." 

"So draw a map!" 

"Are you saying this as Chancellor," Clarke says, getting to her feet, "or are you saying this as my mother?" 

She doesn't wait for an answer. 

 

"I need a few more hours," Raven says, looking up from whatever she's working on when Clarke finds her way to her tent, "and you need some sleep." 

She's too wired to sleep easily, but she's clean, fed, and with Raven working in the background, Clarke is finally able to shut her eyes. 

 

In the morning, Bellamy returns to Camp Jaha. 

(He doesn't get shot on the way in.)

Raven told her, Clarke knew it, but seeing him is an entirely different thing than hearing it over a dying body. Being wrapped up in Bellamy's arms is an entirely different thing. He's warm, and solid, and he's holding her just as tightly as she is him.

Bellamy, alive, and Octavia at his side. Monroe, shot and limping, but alive. _Alive._

When she steps back, he holds onto her shoulders for a long moment, and she reads everything in his face. 

"Who?"

"Sterling," he says. "He fell." 

She touches his arm and says his name, waiting until he looks at her. Then she gives him the forty seven still in Mount Weather. 

"Where are the others?" 

"Grounders," Bellamy says. "We think. Murphy and Finn are out there looking for them. And you." 

"We'll find them. Might be Anya's people," she says. "Might let them go, if we get their people out of Mount Weather." 

Octavia steps forward. "What? What are you talking about?" 

Clarke hugs her, too, but when she opens her mouth to explain, Raven clears her throat.

"Might not be the best place to talk about this," Raven says. She's looking past them to the Ark survivors, clustered in groups, some of them working. A lot of them watching. Some of them guards. 

"O," Bellamy says, once they're tucked in one of the corners of the station, "keep watch," and Octavia steps back, ducking around the corner. Not out of hearing distance but far enough so she'll be able to see anyone approaching. 

"We have to go," Clarke says. "But they're not going to listen to us. My mom's not going to let us go." 

"She let me go."

"To find me. It's different."

"So we leave," Bellamy says. "Right now. We go get our people before she can say otherwise. Can't stop us once we're gone." 

"Can punish us when we get back," she says, but that's not going to stop any of them. 

"You're serious about this," Raven says. "About Anya." 

"We need her," Clarke says. "She was going to speak with the Commander. If we want peace, we need her." 

"How are we gonna do this?" Bellamy rubs his forehead. "Mount Weather was built to withstand nuclear war."

"They have our people," Clarke says. 

Raven takes off the backpack she has slung over her shoulder and hands it to Clarke. "Here. Take this with you."

"Grenades," she says, showing them the inside. "Or something like it. I used whatever I could find so try not to knock them around too much. Flashlights, rope, a compass, and some extra special radiation bombs. Pull the pin, release the trigger." She makes a face. "You should be fine." 

"Raven-"

"I'd only slow you down," she says. "We all know that. So go. Get our friends."

Raven disables a section of the fence, holds it open while they slip through. Bellamy and Octavia go first, but she catches Clarke's arm. "Next time, be a little more obvious when you come home. Don't get shot again."

Clarke feels herself smile. "I'll do my best."

 

Mount Weather is a twenty-odd mile hike, and it'll take them most of the day to get there, but the three of them make good time. They swing by the drop ship, but only so Clarke can get their heading.

She has Mount Weather mapped in her head and she sketches it out in the dirt when they pause to rest and regroup, circling the escape hatch she almost opened once. She wishes she had listened to her gut instead of to Jasper, and then she wonders if she's ever going to trust anybody at face value again.

"We could just open the doors. Our people will be fine," she says. "Radiation won't hurt us, and it won't hurt the Grounders."

She pauses, and Bellamy looks up from her map. 

"I don't know if all of them know what's going on," she says. "Only patients allowed in medical. It's locked down pretty tight."

"If they think they need to do it for their survival-" 

"There's hundreds of people down there," she says. "I can't believe none of them are questioning it."

"They grew up in it," Octavia says. "How would they know any different?"

"We know different," Bellamy says. 

"We'll have to move fast after we get them out," Clarke says. "I don't know if they'll be tracking us-"

"It's obvious where we'll be going anyway."

"Yeah." 

She thinks about a bullet wound that was really an arrow wound. Was it really? How hard would it be to push an arrow head through the path of a bullet? 

Not hard enough.

"And the Reapers? What about them?"

"Shoot them." Octavia picks up her sword. "We should keep moving."

She's right. Part of Clarke wants to push her for answers. Bellamy definitely does, but Octavia's right. 

Anya's a fighter but they're running out of time.

She doesn't hear anything until the arrow slices past her shoulder, lodging in a tree only half a foot behind her. 

They duck down, Bellamy getting in front of them, gun up and - 

"Wait," Octavia says. "Wait!"

Bellamy grabs for her, but she's already out of his reach, stepping closer to the forest. She has her sword, but it's lowered, and her other hand is held out, palm toward the trees. 

"It's me, Octavia." Then she says something, unclear. Something in the Grounder language. 

After a moment, three Grounders melt out of the forest. Two men flanking a woman, all carrying weapons, all carrying scars and tattoos. 

They look at Octavia with wariness. And recognition. 

"Indra, your people. I know where they are," Octavia says. "The mountain men took them. Just like they took ours."

"They had Anya," Clarke says, and something changes in Indra's expression.

"She's hurt," Clarke says. "It's bad. There's. Medical supplies in the mountain that might help her. They're hurting them. Please. Help us."

She expects an argument. Or an attack, but the Grounder woman - who still has not taken her gaze off Octavia - simply says, "how do you know they are mine?"

"Anya knew them. She called them her people. Please. Will you help us?"

Indra is silent for a long moment, holding Clarke's gaze. She gives nothing away when she says something in her language to her people.

"Well," she says and her expression is not a smile. "For my people."

Clarke half expects to be stabbed as soon as her back is turned. Anya had struck with a rock when she hadn't expected it, Anya had turned to her with death in her eyes when Mount Weather managed to keep on their trail. Anya had tried to kill her at the dropship.

But if that's Indra's plan, she's biding her time.

Clarke lets them lead the way - they know how to get to Mount Weather faster and better than she does, and Raven's compass says they're going in the right direction. 

Octavia walks ahead with the Grounders, if they talk, Clarke can't hear it. They haven't shared their names, or their thoughts. She knows they don't laugh or sing. They move like ghosts, silent and swift, just like Anya.

"I never asked who braided her hair like that," Bellamy says. He keeps glancing at his sister. "I thought it was Lincoln."

"They want their people just like we do."

"You really think they want peace? After everything?"

Clarke opens her mouth. Shuts it. She's seen the careful way the Grounders watch Octavia. Anya had looked at her that way, covered in mud and blood and weary to the bone. 

"I hope so," Clarke says. 

"They'll want to kill them all," Bellamy says after a moment, and he's not wrong. She knows he's not wrong. 

"So we go in through the tunnels," she said. "Same way Anya and I came out. Get them distracted with getting their people out - Octavia can handle that, you'll grab the medicine, and I get our people." 

"That easy." 

"We can hope," she says, smirking, and they both start snickering.

When is anything that easy? 

 

When they find the river and stop for a few minutes, one of the Grounders falls into step with her. He is young, but she can't tell how young. It probably doesn't matter - how old had Tris been? How old are any of them? 

Life is different on the ground, but Charlotte couldn't have been much older, and her people sent her into danger, into certain death, so maybe not that different at all. 

"Octavia says you've seen the Mountain Men," the boy says. He's adamantly not looking at her, eyes fixed in front of them. It doesn't sound like a question, but Clarke gives him an answer anyway. 

She glances up. Indra is watching them. "What do you know about them?" 

"The Mountain Men come," he says, "and everyone sleeps. When you wake up, people are missing. We never see them again." 

"Sounds pretty awful." She shares a look with Bellamy. Not as awful as the truth. Was it better to know or to spend the rest of your life wondering?

"Have you been hearing about them your whole life?" Bellamy asks.

The kid nods.

How long has Mount Weather been kidnapping Grounders? Since they found they couldn't go outside? Since they realized some people had survived the radiation and wanted to find out how?

"They eat like we do," Clarke says. "Sleep like we do. They have guns, and technology, but they're still just men. Get their suits off out here, and you'll be fine. One cut. One tear and you have the advantage."

He finally looks at her; he _is_ young. "You've fought them?" 

"I've seen them," she says. "I've talked to them. They're just like us." 

"They die like men," he says, nodding.

"That's not-" 

But it was, wasn't it? People were going to die today. If not today, then tomorrow. If there is a peaceful resolution, she can't see it. Not for the mountain men. Not with what they've done to the Grounders, what she fears they might want with her people.

The Grounder takes her silence as confirmation, and he rejoins his people, like that's all he wanted to hear from her: Mountain Men die just like anyone.

"Grounder Princess was really going to... " he stops, like he's not sure how to complete the thought. 

Indra is still watching her.

"I think we need to be sure." Clarke touches Bellamy's arm, and she walks ahead with purpose.

Indra stays silent when Clarke joins her.

"We know so little about each other," Clarke says. It's true. They know almost nothing about the Grounders, except that they fight, and they fight well, that they strike back when bitten. "I want to know what you want. What you're thinking." 

"It is peace you seek?" Indra asks. "Why would I make an alliance with people who have destroyed our homes, and slaughtered my people?"

"We were defending ourselves." Clarke says. "We never meant to start a war with anyone. We didn't even know anybody was still alive down here."

"And yet a war you did start. Your ignorance is only an excuse." 

"My people are here now," she says, and tries not to think about how she's surrounded by Grounders. "We can finish this now. But I don't want to. Too many people are dead. On both sides. Mount Weather is an enemy to both of us. Anya saw that; can you?" 

Indra is silent for a moment. "You said she was hurt?" 

"It was dark," Clarke says. "We were… my people mistook us for hostile. They shot her. And tried to shoot me."

"And yet you ask for peace."

"I know. we have no reason to trust each other. Except this. I want to help your people-"

Indra snorts. "You want your own people. You simply cannot do it on your own." 

"Mount Weather is hurting your people." Clarke shakes her head. "I don't know what they want with mine. I don't know why they… I know they're lying to us. I know they're going through a lot of trouble to keep us locked away and isolated and scared of the outside world." 

But would it be worse to wake up in a cage or to wake up and not know it's a cage? 

"They are the enemy," Clarke says. "We don't have to be. Please remember that."

 

They follow the river until the waterfall. The hole in the mountain looks higher than she remembers. 

"You jumped from that," Bellamy says. His eyes fall to the river. Then he looks at her. 

Neither of them say anything.

"The Reapers have tunnels over this way," Indra says. "Everyone of the Woods knows where they are."

"Do your people come here a lot?" 

She looks up the slope of the mountain. "No." She looks to where Octavia's talking with Bellamy, their voices too low to carry. "Only when we need to." 

 

They meet no Reapers in the tunnels. They hear nothing except their own footfalls, their own breathing. Clarke, Bellamy and Octavia's, because it's like the Grounders aren't breathing at all. 

They find a door in the tunnels before they find Clarke's chute. There are tracks on the ground in front of it. Recently made, and heading out. 

"We can't blow it open," Clarke says. "Those are blast doors. Even with all of Raven's grenades-" 

"So we wait," Indra says. "They will come back."

Octavia leans around the corner, peering down the tunnel where it continues on past the door. "Do you think they have cameras out here? 

"When they caught me," Clarke says, "they communicated with each other. About opening the door. I don't think they could see anything." 

"Still," Bellamy says. "We should be careful."

"Your people are impatient," Indra says. Her look is a warning. "And loud." 

It isn't long - an hour, maybe two - before three Mountain Men come from the other direction. 

They do speak to someone on the inside. When the door opens, and the Grounders strike, killing two, but it's Octavia that gets ahold of the last one, her sword pressed up against his throat, her hand clenched tight on the back of his hood

Bellamy grabs the door before it can swing shut. 

"Say nothing," Octavia says. She starts to pull at his mask. "Or I rip this suit apart."

They all crowd through the door. Inside is a small room with another door blocking the way. It's a decontamination chamber. If they do have cameras, nobody is monitoring them. When the door shuts behind them, the lights flare and they're drenched in water. 

"There will probably be at least three rooms," Clarke says, pulling her sopping hair over her shoulder. "One to decontaminate, one to remove the clothing, and one to get new clothes."

"Tell them to open the second door." Octavia presses her sword into his throat. "Tell them." 

He struggles in her grip, and one of the Grounder men steps into his space, baring his teeth. "Octavia of the Sky People asked you nicely." 

"Maybe we just shove you back outside," Octavia says. "They'll have to start wondering eventually, right? Open the door and check?"

The Grounders strike faster than the door takes to open. Four of the Mountain Men are dead before they can react; the fifth only manages to graze Nyko's arm before Indra shoves a knife through his throat. 

"Slow," Indra says, looking at the bodies.

"They weren't expecting us. Has anyone ever breached the mountain before?" Clarke takes one of their keycards before Indra answers, swipes it at the next door. A light turns on as they pass through

"Wait," Bellamy says, Clarke says. They say it again together. 

They've walked into an armory. Guns sit on racks, handguns, semi-automatics, tasers, grenades, bullets neatly stored in boxes. What looks like armor, thick kevlar, hangs in lockers. 

"When we leave," Bellamy says, picking up a few, checking them. He hands one to Octavia. "We're taking as many of these as we can."

Clarke nods, distracted. Hanging on hooks along the back wall are radiation suits. Dozens of them. Fullbody, boots on the ground, the masks hanging above the suits. There's also a large box of the hoods in the corner. 

Clarke turns to Indra. "Can I borrow your knife?"

It's still dripping with blood, but she slices open the suits, chest back neck thighs, leaving gaping holes everywhere she touches. After the first few, Octavia starts doing the same from the other end of the room until none are left untouched. 

She hands Indra her knife back. "Now we go." 

Indra says something to two of her warriors, and they take up positions alongside the door. 

"We will not leave this unprotected," Indra says. 

"She's right," Bellamy says. "We can't let them get at the guns. Lead the way, princess." 

She takes them through sterile white hallways, Bellamy to her right, Indra to her left and the rest of them following behind. They turn two corners before they see another person - she calculates the hour; a lot of them are probably eating. 

He's not the doctor she recognizes, but he wears the same kind of coat. He's dead before he turns around, Grounder blade through his stomach. 

Clarke pulls his keycard from around his neck and steps over the body. She tries to map out the air ducts in her head with what she knows of Medical's layout. It wasn't far from where they took her. 

"This way," she says. 

 

Indra says something harsh when she sees the cages. Her people, locked away like animals. Starved, exsanguinated, who knew what else Mount Weather did to them. The Grounders go to them immediately, start pulling at the doors, the locks. 

One of the warriors cries out, reaching into the cage to touch one of the prisoners. 

Family? Friend? 

"Octavia, help them. Bellamy and I are getting the others." Out in the hallway, she hands him the doctor's keycard. "This should get you anywhere you need to go." 

"What about-"

Clarke holds up the soldier's card. "I'll be fine."

Bellamy hands her his guns. 

She grabs Bellamy's wrist before she takes it. "Move quickly. Get everything you can. Antibiotics, anesthesia, anything. We're gonna need it for more than Anya."

He jerks his head toward the door. "Go!" 

She runs down the hallway. 

It surprises her that no guards meet her in the hallway. It surprises her that she meets no resistance until she skids into the barracks where Dante keeps her people. 

"Everyone get your stuff! We're leaving," she says. "Now." They look surprised. Uncertain, so she says it again. "We're going now." 

"Clarke-" 

"I'm not going out there," Thalia says. "What about the Grounders? We're safe here, why would we-" 

"Because the Grounders are helping us get out! They're willing to help me get you out. What do you think that says about this place? It's not safe here. And our people are waiting for us. Dante's been lying to us; our parents are out there. They survived the fall. We're not safe here. You're not." 

Whether they've been growing uneasy in her absence, or their trust in her remains, or the tone of her voice is enough to convince them, they start moving. Some of them grab clothes, some books, some nothing at all. Clarke does a quick headcount as they pass through the door. 

Harper and Miller stop by her side; Miller has a bag over his shoulder. Clarke gives Harper her gun. 

"Go with them," Clarke says when the last is out. "And Harper? If anyone tries to stop you, shoot them." 

She turns to Miller. "The others?"

"This way," he says. 

They meet a group of them, about ten, in the hallway outside of the mess hall. Jasper and Monty are with them, Maya as well. More of Mount Weather's people are coming down the hallway, but they aren't the soldiers. 

They aren't soldiers, but Clarke watches them anyway. 

"Clarke!"

It's Monty who hugs her; she lets him, if only briefly. 

"We have to go. Head to Medical, it's down that way to-"

"Clarke," Jasper says. "We heard you were sick-"

"I'm not. I got out. I saw our people; they're out there, looking for us." Clarke notices how Maya shifts on her feet, looking over her shoulder. "Isn't that right?" 

Dante's behind her. He has guards with him, tall, broad-shouldered soldiers, one on either side. He probably has more on the way.

"Clarke," he says. "You're not ready to be out of the psych ward. You need help; let us help you-"

"Psych ward," she says, "Is that what you've been telling them?" 

The guards don't have guns, not that she can see, but that doesn't mean anything. 

"I could have just opened the doors," Clarke says to the crowd gathering behind Dante and his men. "But some of you have to be innocent. I can't believe you're all in on it. I don't believe that. But the Grounders know what you've been doing to their people. You think they won't cry for blood? You think my people won't listen to them? After you've lied to us and held us prisoner-" 

Dante makes a placating gesture with his hands. "You're not prisoners. We kept you safe-" 

"Safe," she says. "Like you kept Anya safe? And the rest of the Grounders?" 

She reaches into her pocket and-

There are the guns she was looking for. 

"Gonna shoot me," she says, raising her hand, palm out, showing them the device. "Do you know what this is? You wanna know." She doesn't smile. Maybe if she did, Dante would stop looking at her like she's a child. Like she's not serious. "It's a radiation bomb. Raven made them for us. But you haven't met Raven because you left her to die in our dropship. I let go of this trigger-" Clarke makes an exploding motion with her free hand. "We're going back to our people. Now."

She doesn't believe they won't follow them, hunt them down like animals, but any time she can buy is time they can't spare. 

"You won't use that," Dante says. "Take them." 

A soldier grabs Jasper, gun shoved against Jasper's forehead. 

She lets go of the trigger the same time Miller hits the guy over the head with his bag. He snatches the gun out of the soldier's hand and turns it on the other soldier, but they're both on the ground, screaming as their flesh burns away. 

Dante's down too, but the rest of the crowd runs, scatters, covering their heads with their hands like it might protect them. 

Her people stay; some of them look like they might be sick, most of them look scared. Maya's huddled against the wall, stumbling in the other direction; the radiation doesn't seem to have reached her yet. Clarke tells her to run. 

"Start heading to Medical," she says to the others, pointing. She gives Monty the last bomb and quickly shows him how to use it. "It's not far. Bellamy's there with the Grounders. He'll guide you out." 

Clarke holds tight to her own bomb. She doesn't know how long it's going to emit, or if it's a one use only sort of thing, but she's not about to let go of it. 

She doesn't need it. It's not that far to the mess hall. Most people have scattered already, and when they see Miller with his gun, most of them get out of the way. Some of them aren't fast enough; radiation clings to their clothing; less than ten feet and they start getting sick. 

"Be nice if we could broadcast to everyone," he says, when another person flinches away, her skin turning red.

"Send out our people? Stay away and you won't get hurt? You think they'd listen?" 

He tilts his head in acknowledgement. "Can we really afford to have Mount Weather as an enemy?" 

"They're not allies," she says. "They are _not_ our allies. And maybe we'll have the Grounders after this." 

He glances at her, eyebrows raised. 

"I know," Clarke says. "It's a big maybe."

They meet a few more of their people in the hallways, and when she tells them to head to medical, they do. They find Fox and Jones in the mess hall, half empty plates in front of them. The smell hits Clarke hard. Maybe if they could get in their hydroponics bay- 

No. There's no time for that. 

"They're the last of them," Miller says. 

Clarke nods; she's been counting too. "Let's go-"

Men turn the corner at the end of the hallway, dressed in their radiation suits. Miller gets one in the chest, and another through the neck. Three more appear and open fire. 

Clarke herds the others backinto the mess hall, pulling Miller by the back of his shirt until the wall covers him. He's bleeding from his arm; the bullet only grazed him. 

"Well this is great," Fox says. "What now?" 

A cannister rolls down the hall, spinning at their feet and hissing angrily. 

"Gas," Jones says, covering his mouth. He picks it up and throws the can down the hall, but some of it still gets in his lungs. He starts coughing, sagging against the wall as the bright red arc starts filling the other side of the room. 

Fox catches him, slides under his arm, buckling under his weight. "Got any more tricks up your sleeve?" 

Clarke meets her eyes. "One." 

She hands the radiation bomb to Miller. 

Then she pulls out the grenade. 

 

There is a hole in the floor, and blood splattered on the wall. Fox and Jones skid on the slick floor, but maintain their footing as they pass. Both of them try not to look at the bodies. 

At least one of them is still alive, groaning on his side. The radiation from their clothing starts to eat away at his flesh, but Clarke still takes his gun. 

"Take them to Medical," she says, looking down the hallway. They have more radiation suits stashed somewhere. She needs to destroy them all. 

"Not leaving you," Miller says. 

"Yeah," Jones says. "I'm fine." 

He starts coughing, and Fox jostles him, probably to get a better grip on him. "You can barely stand."

"Medical's the way out," Clarke says. "Bellamy's there. You have to go." 

"Not without you," Miller says. 

She has to get those suits. But who knows where they keep them all, how many they have stashed away? If it was her, she wouldn't just keep them at the exits; she'd have them in multiple places, under lock and key and behind heavy doors. 

"Clarke," Fox says, and Clarke knows she can't. 

Miller slips under Jones' other side, taking some of his weight from Fox. Clarke takes the radiation bomb back, and gives Fox the other gun. 

 

Bellamy meets them at the door, and behind her, Miller swears, staring at the cages, most of them broken open and empty already. Indra and Monty and a few others are helping get the rest of them out and through the door. 

"You said forty-seven, right? Good. They're all here. I sent most of them along to get the guns with the freed Grounders," Bellamy says. "A Grounder went with them. Hey. Monty went through everything left in the medical supplies. You might want to take a look. I grabbed everything I could, but if there's something we need-"

"Yeah," Clarke says. "I'll have to be quick." 

"It's gonna be a few more minutes before the Grounders have everyone out." He looks at her. "Indra is… Some of them aren't going to make it." 

"Some of them will," she says. 

It has to be enough. 

"I found Lincoln in on of the other rooms," he says quietly. "It looks bad."

She wonders what bad means when the rest of the Grounder prisoners look so frail. When some of the Grounder prisoners are already dead in their cages. Indra touches each of them, murmurs something to each of them. 

They don't really have time for this - how long until Dante's soldiers come? How long before they're attacked again?

Clarke goes to them. "What are you saying to them?" 

It's the boy that tells her: _your fight is over_

Is that what Anya said? When she lay dying just outside Camp Jaha? When she killed one of her own in the Reaper tunnels because it was the only way to save him from a worse fate? 

Clarke sounds out the words slowly, carefully, then again stronger under Indra's watchful eye. 

She goes to the closest of the dead Grounders and says it, touching his forehead. 

"May we meet again," she says then, and closes his eyes. 

 

Her perusal of the rest of medical is quick. Bellamy cleaned almost everything out. He's left drawers and doors hanging open, a chair knocked over and not a lot of supplies anyone could easily take. Broken glass litters the floor where he couldn't break a lock or his keycard didn't work. . 

Some of the heavier machines would be nice to have, but they're bolted down and far too heavy for any of them to carry. She doesn't know what parts to take so Raven can recreate them back at Camp Jaha. 

There's nothing more for her to take. 

Clarke steps into the hallway and nearly gets shot. 

She jerks back against the door, grasping for a weapon. 

They come around the corner, and she shoves the chair at them. The first one trips, the second nearly follows, and Clarke shoves a piece of broken glass in his chest. He goes down on top of the other, and while the first is still trying to get to his feet, she pulls off his mask. 

Her hands are steady, bleeding but steady, and her heart races. 

The radiation lingering on her clothes is enough to burn, but not to incapacitate, and he grabs her ankle and _yanks._

She hits the floor hard. Clarke scrambles for another piece of glass, a book, a shoe, anything. 

The Man gasps, sounding like he's choking, and Clarke looks up in time to see infra pulling her sword from his belly. 

She doesn't look at Clarke before she stalks down the hallway. Towards the rest of Mount Weather and not the outside. 

Clarke pushes to her feet, fighting the rush of blood to her head, and runs down the hall after her. "Indra! Indra, you can't… we have to go!" 

She's not going to listen. She's going to get killed (but not before she kills a lot of Mountain Men) because she's just one against many, because they have guns and can shoot her before she even gets close enough. 

But Indra turns. Her mouth is set and her eyes are angry, and she stalks towards Clarke like she means her harm. "This is not the end." 

"No," Clarke says, and she dares to grip Indra's shoulder. "It's not." 

 

Someone made the Grounders put on the boots from the radiation suits as well as what's left of the pants and the jackets. After a moment's thought, Clarke makes them take a few of the gas masks too. They're too bogged down with guns and ammo and medical supplies to take all of them, but some are better than none. 

Everyone has some sort of pack, some actual bags, some wrapped up medical coats or the bright yellow patient gowns, like Bellamy made whatever he could find into a bag and stuffed it to the brim with stuff. Everyone has at least one gun, if not more. 

Clarke tells Fox to pick a Grounder, or two, and help them as they need it. She tells her to spread the word, quietly, to everyone. If anyone objects, they keep it to themselves. 

Most of the Grounders are painfully thin. They can't have started that way, not when every Grounder Clarke's ever met has been strong, and healthy. 

How long before they were tossed to the Reapers? Tossed _alive_ to die? 

As Bellamy and Nyko herd everyone out the door, Clarke takes the last radiation bomb from Monty and sets it off in the armory. She leaves the last door open. There has to be more than one exit, but any time she can buy them is worth it. 

Miller stays near Clarke until one of the Grounders fall to her knees. She tries to get up, tries and fails, and Miller helps her to her feet, wraps his arm around her waist and holds her steady against his side. 

They spill out of the tunnels like ants, and Clarke breathes easier once they're into the trees. 

Indra leads the group. After a few miles, most of the Grounders have found their feet, and can walk on their own. Some of them are too thin, too weak, and Lincoln leans heavily on Octavia. He has strange marks on his chest that none of the others have and no words to describe what happened to him yet. When Octavia starts to struggle with his weight, Nyko steps in to help her. 

Bellamy's men keep to their rear, a few of Indra's warriors with them, watching for pursuit. Some stick to the middle and some stay close to the front. Clarke makes her way through each part of their group, keeping an eye on her people and the Grounders that look too thin, too weak.

Mount Weather attacks once. Grounders melt into the trees and attack from the sides with rocks and sticks, with their hands and feet when they have no other weapons, while the gunners cover them. 

They're a few miles from Mount Weather when she hangs back until she's at Bellamy's side. 

"Come with me," she says, and together they make their way to the front and to Indra. 

There is something troubled in her eyes, but Clarke's seen that look on all of their faces. It's not something any of them are going to leave behind easily. 

"Do you have somewhere to go? Somewhere safe. Somewhere they can heal?" 

Indra says nothing, but it's clear that they don't. 

Three hundred of their warriors dead. Villages burned down by flares. What other destruction don't they know about? But if they're going to have peace… 

She shares a look with Bellamy. "You can come with us." 

"Maybe you should come with us," Bellamy says. "Indra. You know this area better than us. You know this world. We don't. They're going to come after us. Probably soon. We have fences. Guns. Medical supplies. Healing. Let us help you. Like you helped us." 

"More targets are harder to follow than one," Indra says. "Especially a large, noisy one." 

"Smaller groups are more easily overrun," Bellamy says. "It's not forever. Just until they're well enough and you have a place to go. And our people need to talk about Mount Weather. And each other. Our leaders-" 

"It's you," Clarke says. "Isn't it. You're the Commander. The one Anya talked about? She said she could get an audience with you. She- she said she would try." 

"You think she is already dead." 

"I," Clarke says. "I hope not. But it was bad." 

"And your people are responsible."

"I'm responsible," Clarke says. "I should've known. I should've known my people would be scared. They don't know this world like you do. Not even like we do." 

"Yet you ask me to trust them." 

"Trust me," Clarke says.

"Trust us," Octavia says - Clarke hadn't realized they'd gotten so close - Lincoln still leans heavily on her, and Nyko follows close behind. Lincoln says something in his own language, but Indra's focus is on Octavia. 

"Do we not prove ourselves well?" Octavia asks. "Haven't we?"

Bellamy starts to say something to his sister, but Clarke catches his wrist and turns back to Indra.

"We're stronger together," she says. "We can be stronger together."

 

Clarke walks up to the camp alone. She shouts her name and waits until the gates open, until she sees someone and knows they see her, but she waits until her mom comes to her. 

"I have my people," she says. "And I have the Grounders. They need medical care. I promised them we would help. I promised them that they'd be safe with us."

The blonde guard starts to say something, but Clarke's mom holds up her hand. 

"Of course," she says, wearing the Chancellor's pin. 

She sets them up in an area near the medical tents, but not one that's enclosed or anything like a cage. 

Miller hugs his dad, but he and Monty and Fox and Jones and even Jasper help bring the Grounders food and water while Clarke and Bellamy and Raven sort through the medical supplies and the guns. 

Abby takes what she needs and goes to Anya first. Then she and Jackson start with the Grounders, treating them one by one. Many of them are underfed and anemic, but not yet malnourished. Nyko acts as translator, and Indra follows, listening and watching. 

It takes half the night before everyone is seen, Grounders and Clarke's people alike, and the trackers removed. Though resources are scarce, the Grounders are given blankets and pallets and cots. 

A fire is started after two of Indra's men return with two large deer, and the boy - Clarke needs to learn their names - and his father return with nets of fish from the lake. 

Bellamy touches her shoulder gently. He looks as tired as she feels, but it's a good tired. 

"If they have the rest of our people, Indra knows where they'd take them. She's sending Tyse and Gallo in a few hours. I'm going with them." He looks out over the camp. "You should get some rest." 

"Bellamy-" 

"I got this," Bellamy says. 

Behind him, Lincoln meets her gaze. He hasn't tried to stand since the last time, but his eyes are clear and his nod of acknowledgement is decisive.

"I want one of us with them at all times," she says and her eyes track the guards in the area. They meet Indra's, where she stands with Clarke's mom by the fire, and hold. 

"At least three," Bellamy says. "Three of ours. I got this, princess." 

 

Anya doesn't wake for hours. When she does, groggy and confused, she immediately tries to sit, to rip off her bandages. Her fingers catch on the IV in her arm, tangling in the tubing; she's ready to yank before Clarke catches her hand. 

"No, Anya. Anya! It's medicine! It's medicine. You got shot," Clarke says, gently pushing her back onto the cot. "They got attacked, and they mistook us for hostile. They shot you."

Then Clarke tells her about her recovery time, talks over her when she snarls something about not being weak. Tells her about the dangers of internal bleeding, about infections, about the tube in her side- 

She shuts her mouth when she sees Anya's face. "You know all this already."

"I'm not afraid to die," Anya says.A

"I know. But you don't have to. If you want to live," Clarke says. "This is how it is." 

Not that she expects it to be that easy. When is it ever easy with Anya? With the ground? It's just one fight after the next, and now she has to look out for a few hundred people who understand the ground even less than she does. 

"I hate your people," Anya says.

Clarke smiles. She wonders what Anya will say when she sees her people free of Mount Weather, safe and healthy and _alive_. 

Probably the same thing. 

"You're alive to hate us," Clarke says. She's still holding Anya's wrist, her pulse strong under Clarke's fingers.


End file.
